Calcutta University to Confine Admission to General Courses; A Step Taken Against Admissions beyond Capacity

The University of Calcutta (CU) has instructed its affiliated colleges to submit the information about the intake capacity for the general courses. CU has sent the official letter only a few weeks before admission to the undergraduate courses. It is speculated that the university might set an upper age limit for the admissions.

A number of principals feel that the university will arrange the seats considering the situation that was faced by the university in the previous year. Even after several extensions, the seats of a number of general courses remained vacant. Calcutta university has sent the missive to the 160 affiliated colleges. The intake capacity of the courses such as humanities, science and commerce streams is not available so far.

For the honors course, the Calcutta university has set the intake capacity. However, no limit so far has been set for the general courses. This move is set to ensure that the college does not get pressurized  by the students union. It has happened in the past that the students union have extracted money from the students in return of offering them admission beyond the intake capacity. The move will be a stop sign for the unions thereby deterring money extraction from the students.

What happened Last Year

In the previous year, the higher education department had to shift the admission procedure of online just so that the student union does not extort money from the applicants. In spite of several extensions, seats remained vacant in a number of courses.

While there is a intake limit for the honors subject, there is no such limit set for the General courses. Police had to be deployed at several colleges to avoid trouble because of the student’s union.

“We do not have the data or the specifications about the number of students a college can admit in honors and general courses but very few colleges follow it. Secondly, several colleges that are very old have expanded and upgraded their infrastructure but the university has no updated data on it. We have written to the colleges to send the updated figures in humanities, science and commerce,” – CU Official said.

admissions beyond the limit

Some years ago, after repetitive complaints of excess admissions, CU had specified the maximum number of students a college can admit. However, this limit was set for the honors course only. Since there are vast number of seats in the general courses, the unions pressurized the colleges to admit more and more students. “Several students who have not done well fail to procure admission in the honors category. The unions extort money from them and get them admitted to general courses,” – Principal, North Kolkata College. It has also been suggested by another principle that the universities can rearrange seats in different subjects and categories so that many seats are not wasted.